Papers by Uthara Suvrathan
Extrait: Uthara Suvrathan, "A Fragmentary Brahmi Inscription from Banavasi," <em>... more Extrait: Uthara Suvrathan, "A Fragmentary Brahmi Inscription from Banavasi," <em>Purāttatva</em> 43 (2013): 247-51. Banavasi (India) -- Antiquities. Antiquities. India -- Banavasi.
Aruna Pariti, Genealogy, Time and Identity: Historical Consciousness in the Deccan, Sixth Century CE–Twelfth Century CE
South Asian Studies, 2016
understanding that leads to liberation-while-living – the soteriological goal Andrew Fort’s contr... more understanding that leads to liberation-while-living – the soteriological goal Andrew Fort’s contribution to this volume discusses at length – entails the realization that all seemingly separate appearances are merely consciousness. The YV’s employment of ābhāsa, typically translated as a false or illusory appearance, is detailed in one of Sthaneshwar Timalsina’s excellent chapters. After reviewing variant applications of the term ābhāsa within and across Mahāyāna Buddhism and Advaita Vedānta, Timalsina points out the perplexing position in Advaita literature that identifies the world with both ignorance and Brahman. With careful analysis of the Sanskrit terminology, Timalsina shows that the YV is aware of both views and holds ‘that the first position, the negation of the world with error, functions as a pedagogical strategy to confirm the higher position that there exists only Brahman’ (p. 64). In his second chapter, Timalsina draws out striking parallels in how the Yogavāsiṣṭha and Jorge Luis Borges’s magical realism treat the themes of dreaming, mirroring, and the circularity of time. Garth Bregman, on the other hand, sets out a many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory and the YV’s account of the simultaneous existence of endless worlds. Pranati Ghosal discusses the YV’s attitude toward self-determination (pauruṣa) over and above fate (daiva), an issue well-trodden in secondary literature, while Roddam Narasimha similarly summarizes the YV’s exhortation of effortful action, inquiry (vicāra) and atomistic theory. Menaha Ganesathasan interestingly explores the YV’s identification of the world with a dream and fictive story in the wider context of understanding how the work harnesses imagination to inculcate empathy and moral behavior despite holding the world as an illusion. Finally, Christopher Key Chapple, drawing inspiration from ecocriticism, examines how the YV depicts meditation on the natural elements as leading to anthropocosmic experience. On Chapple’s account, the author of the YV does not reject the natural world but valorizes it as an ‘entry point’ for sensorial experience of nature qua body. In his second chapter included in this volume, Chapple reviews the nine exemplifying stories of the upaśama prakaraṇa section of the Yogavāsiṣṭha, underscoring the inseparability of psychology and ethics and highlighting how the soteriological aim of the work does not entail rejecting the world but returning to it after a radical transformation. Overall, this edited volume contributes not only to the specialist literature on the Yogavāsiṣṭha, particularly as it relates to the issues of space and body, but will also be well-received by a wider, philosophically informed audience. While the transmission and historical importance of the Yogavāsiṣṭha from the medieval to colonial periods remains a desideratum in the field, Engaged Emancipation admirably elucidates the fantastical narrativity and deep philosophical teaching of an important medieval work that continues to inspire today’s practitioners and scholars alike.
Spoiled for Choice? The Sacred Landscapes of Ancient and Early Medieval Banavasi
South Asian Studies, 2014
This study explores how the sacred landscape was variously defined, demarcated, and appropriated ... more This study explores how the sacred landscape was variously defined, demarcated, and appropriated in ancient and early medieval South India. Focusing in particular on the site of Banavasi in the modern state of Karnataka, I examine archaeological and epigraphic evidence to parse out some of the spatial and temporal patterns in the interaction between a surprising diversity of religious traditions and practices. While the close connection between local elite authority and traditional religious institutions such as Buddhism and Hinduism is apparent in Banavasi, the spatial and temporal organization of the landscape reflects several larger processes of interaction. These include the legitimization of local and regional elites, as well as more complex processes of interaction, competition, and replacement between religions. In addition, while stupas and temples are clearly recognizable elements of the archaeological record in South Asia, there is also considerable evidence for local cults and religious traditions, such as naga (snake) stones and various forms of commemoration. At times, these were appropriated within the larger religious traditions, and at other times remained separate and distinct entities in their own right. The persistence and longevity of these local traditions ensured that they occupied an important space in the sacred landscape of Banavasi. This article presents a case study that illustrates the complex and overlapping patterns of replacement, competition, appropriation, and abandonment that constitute historical sacred landscapes in ancient and medieval South India.
Spaces and Places: Examining historic maps from South Asia
Complexity on the Periphery: A Study of Regional Organization at Banavasi, c.1st - 18th Century A.D
Bullion, baubles and bowls
Book review: H. P. Ray, Coastal Shrines and Transnational Maritime Networks Across India and Southeast Asia
H. P. Ray, Coastal Shrines and Transnational Maritime Networks Across India and Southeast Asia. R... more H. P. Ray, Coastal Shrines and Transnational Maritime Networks Across India and Southeast Asia. Routledge, 2021 Hardback, 255 pages, ISBN: 978-0-3677-0804-7 Price: ₹995.
The multivalence of landscapes
Complexity on the Periphery: A Study of Regional Organization at Banavasi, c.1st - 18th Century A.D
Color, Graffiti and the Senses: Visitors and Worshippers at Indian Archaeological Sites
The Jugaad Project: Material Religions in Context, 2020
In Himanshu Prabha Ray (ed.), Archaeology of Knowledge Traditions of the Indian Ocean World. Routledge., 2021
2000_The City in the State
The Present and Future of Counternarratives, 2000
This paper presents a preliminary typology and temporal classification of ancient and medieval ro... more This paper presents a preliminary typology and temporal classification of ancient and medieval roof tiles. Survey data on roof tiles from the site of Banavasi in Karnataka is compared to information on roof tiles found in stratified contexts from excavations throughout India to present an initial sequence. Establishing a fine-grained roof tile sequence is of considerable importance for archaeologists studying the premodern period and has considerable potential for dating sites and structures in south Asia.
South Asian Studies 30.2, 2014
This study explores how the sacred landscape was variously defined, demarcated, and appropriated ... more This study explores how the sacred landscape was variously defined, demarcated, and appropriated in ancient and
early medieval South India. Focusing in particular on the site of Banavasi in the modern state of Karnataka, I examine
archaeological and epigraphic evidence to parse out some of the spatial and temporal patterns in the interaction
between a surprising diversity of religious traditions and practices. While the close connection between local elite
authority and traditional religious institutions such as Buddhism and Hinduism is apparent in Banavasi, the spatial and
temporal organization of the landscape reflects several larger processes of interaction. These include the legitimization
of local and regional elites, as well as more complex processes of interaction, competition, and replacement between
religions. In addition, while stupas and temples are clearly recognizable elements of the archaeological record in South
Asia, there is also considerable evidence for local cults and religious traditions, such as naga (snake) stones and
various forms of commemoration. At times, these were appropriated within the larger religious traditions, and at other
times remained separate and distinct entities in their own right. The persistence and longevity of these local traditions
ensured that they occupied an important space in the sacred landscape of Banavasi. This article presents a case study
that illustrates the complex and overlapping patterns of replacement, competition, appropriation, and abandonment
that constitute historical sacred landscapes in ancient and medieval South India.
Puratattva, Vol. 43, 2013
Indian History, 2014
As in many parts of the world, the history and archaeology of South Asia has privileged the study... more As in many parts of the world, the history and archaeology of South Asia has privileged the study of the development and expansion of large states and empires. Yet, in South Asian contexts, 'peripheral' places located outside or on the fringes of these larger systems had tremendous endurance and continuity, often outlasting their larger neighbours. This article discusses the results of an archaeological and historical project investigating socio-political and religious organization in one such 'peripheral' place-Banavasi, an early historic urban centre that rose to prominence as one of the capitals of the regional kingdom of the Kadamba dynasty (fourth-sixth centuries CE), and continued as a small regional administrative center up to the eighteenth century. In tracing the longue durée of socio-political and religious organization at Banavasi from the first to the eighteenth centuries CE, it demonstrates that the development of the settlement was shaped both by the strategies of local elite families, as well as by larger subcontinent-wide developments, such as the spread of Buddhism in an early period and of imperial temple architectural styles in a later period. Ultimately, Banavasi's longevity can be linked to the fact that it provided a space for the creation and display of a complex relationship of patronage and legitimacy between elite families and religious institutions, especially Shaivite Hinduism from the twelfth century onwards.
In Upinder Singh, Nayanjyot Lahiri (Ed.), Ancient India: New Research (Oxford University Press: Delhi), 2009
Editorials - The Jugaaad Project by Uthara Suvrathan
2020 Winter Issue, Color and Material Religion - Editorial
The Jugaad Project, 2020
Our Winter 2020 issue and editorial focuses on Color. The first piece is a photo essay by Tulasi ... more Our Winter 2020 issue and editorial focuses on Color. The first piece is a photo essay by Tulasi Srinivas, “Kiwi Fruit and Kewpie Dolls: Transformative Alankara and Modernity in Bangalore”. In our second photo essay, Uthara Suvrathan addresses “Color, Graffiti and the Senses: Visitors and Worshipers at Indian Archaeological Sites.” Alexandra Dalferro writes about “The Prismatics of Silk” in the third offering of this issue. The fourth piece in this issue is a digital exhibit and curatorial essay on the artistic process of weaver Claire Le Pape whose series Giottoesques is inspired by Giotto’s frescoes. [This entry contains links to the editorial as well as the individual authored papers.]
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Papers by Uthara Suvrathan
early medieval South India. Focusing in particular on the site of Banavasi in the modern state of Karnataka, I examine
archaeological and epigraphic evidence to parse out some of the spatial and temporal patterns in the interaction
between a surprising diversity of religious traditions and practices. While the close connection between local elite
authority and traditional religious institutions such as Buddhism and Hinduism is apparent in Banavasi, the spatial and
temporal organization of the landscape reflects several larger processes of interaction. These include the legitimization
of local and regional elites, as well as more complex processes of interaction, competition, and replacement between
religions. In addition, while stupas and temples are clearly recognizable elements of the archaeological record in South
Asia, there is also considerable evidence for local cults and religious traditions, such as naga (snake) stones and
various forms of commemoration. At times, these were appropriated within the larger religious traditions, and at other
times remained separate and distinct entities in their own right. The persistence and longevity of these local traditions
ensured that they occupied an important space in the sacred landscape of Banavasi. This article presents a case study
that illustrates the complex and overlapping patterns of replacement, competition, appropriation, and abandonment
that constitute historical sacred landscapes in ancient and medieval South India.
Editorials - The Jugaaad Project by Uthara Suvrathan